Great British Bake Off’s gay dad Dan Beasley-Harling laughs off ‘mum magnet’ status
Dan Beasley-Harling (love productions, twitter and the sunday post)
A British newspaper has attracted ridicule after stating that Great British Bake Off turned gay contestant Dan Beasley-Harling into “a hot dish of the day with mums at his kids’ school.”
The stay-at-home dad, who stole viewers’ hearts in the first episode of the British institution’s ninth season, talked to Newcastle’s The Sunday Post about his newfound fame.
Beasley-Harling, 36, said: “I do get recognised quite a lot in the supermarket checkout, and people are always really positive and complimentary.”
Dan has two children (Dan Beasley-Harling/facebook)
He then revealed that thanks to the Channel 4 show, he had become more popular with mothers at the London school which his sons Barnaby and Constance attend.
“It’s also come with the side benefit that the alpha mums at the school gate now come and say hello!” said Dan.
The Sunday Post slightly misinterpreted this innocent statement, reporting his comments under the headline: “Dan’s the man that all mums want to chat up.”
Dan took the article well (dbeasleyharling/twitter)
In the article, the paper added: “Dan Beasley-Harling says the show has turned him into a hot dish of the day with mums at his kids’ school.”
The baker’s tweet tickled his followers, with one writing: “If by ‘chat up’ they mean ‘live the dream baking/celeb-ing/parenting life vicariously through’ then yeah, for sure .”
“If by ‘chat up’ they mean ‘live the dream baking/celeb-ing/parenting life vicariously through’ then yeah, for sure” (twitter)
Beasley-Harling, who returns Tuesday night (September 18) for the season’s fourth episode, has come third, fourth and sixth so far in the show’s technical challenges.
The father-of-two has admitted that he applied to go on GBBO for “entirely selfish” reasons, explaining that, with his youngest son starting school, he was “ready to rejoin the world of adults.”
“I have been at home looking after the kids for the last six years, so it was a chance to do something for myself,” he said.
The contestants of this season’s GBBO (Love Productions)
“I bake in the little spare time that I have, and often work on bakes over the course of several days.”
Many of GBBO‘s queer fans have huge crushes on Ruby and Manon which were sparked by the season’s first episode.
Last year’s edition had fan-favourite Yan, a lesbian contestant who won over viewers with her creative, upbeat attitude—but by the sounds of it, people are even more enamoured with Ruby and Manon.
However, many of the show’s male viewers have been frustrated by the lack of attractive men in the GBBO tent.
Manon and Ruby (Love Productions)
This is especially disappointing for them in light of the fact, as confirmed by GBBO runner-up Ruby Tandoh, that the show is “queer culture.”
Last year, the show put rainbow cakes at the heart of its advertising campaign.
The show faced criticism in 2016 as the contestants were announced holding bowls of icing that seemingly marked their gender, with women holding pink icing and men holding blue.
